This is basically how they got Charly Flores to join the Academy. After he dropped a hattie on the team in a game, they asked him to join where he continued to tear things up. He signed a year early as a pro, same time as Luca, but never got any minutes with RGV because....depends on who you ask. He's out of the system now, another lost cause who showed stupid levels of talent.
I was thoroughly unimpressed with the credentials of the guy they replaced Clarkson with. Was this a Cabrera friend again?
Um, I have to agree. What is this man's major selling point for us in our region of the U.S. youth soccer scene? Is this man able to be had on the cheap? Seriouxly, did our FO do their thing and just cut Clarkson and tell this man he will have a job here in Houston for like 25K, he takes it as he can't get that even in his own Bay Area.
I don't know if Wilmer knows him but he is a MLS man so knows how things work in general. He is from the Quakes so is cheap. He is from the Quakes so he knows what it is like having no money to spend. That 'checks all the boxes' for this FO.
Caps with a sweet $14M in their bank account for selling Davies, and possibly up to 21 and 15% of his next transfer. This is why you invest in your academy....
The Athletic put out their MLS academy ratings. I strongly encourage all of you to subscribe to the website. That said, they ranked the Dynamo 21st out of 23 teams, ahead of expansion LAFC and Minnesota. I won’t post the whole Dynamo portion out of respect for the paywall, but this stuck out: “Now for the bad. The academy was in such poor shape as recently as 2017 that a local, non-MLS Development Academy side, Texans SC Houston, was able to go 6-0-0 in the U-19 playoffs and actually win the DA national title over the L.A. Galaxy. There’s so much coaching and player talent in Houston that an unheralded club unseated the league’s blue bloods, all while the Dynamo U-19 team didn’t even make the playoffs. To make things worse, Christian Cappis, the best player from that Texans team and a U.S. youth international, joined the FC Dallas academy for the next season. Holocher has a lot of work ahead, but he’s sitting on a talent gold mine in Houston. The Dynamo just need to do everything differently. No pressure.”
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! oh, but y'all some bandwagoners ruining the brand because you won't buy season tickets from a really nice guy.
I guess I'll just embrace the bandwagon label... it's easier this way. More and more examples come out about this FO, but yet the fans get the blame. When will they actually be held and hold themselves accountable? I posted this on reddit... see how they respond lol
I’m pretty sure the lack of a real MLS academy contributes to the “Circle of Suck” but let’s blame the fans for not purchasing a crap product in large quantities. What does it say when the only 2 teams we are ahead of are 2017 & 2018 expansion sides? Will Canetti claim a “disadvantage” to having an 11-year Head start on LAFC? And FC Dallas was ranked 2nd overall
If I was Houston, I would let people like Aldeberg to shut the ******** up, because it brings out people like us to challenge their bullshit.
You have to remember, their engagement with the fanbase even on social media is limited to a relatively small group of folks roughly 70% Suck-up Orange Kool-Aid drinkers and 30% normal fans who they dismiss as irrelevant. Any good point is generally responded to with things like “well, Toronto spending $15 milion and won’t make the playoffs either” or “what has Atlanta ever won?” They operate as if the fanbase purchasing tickets blindly is a PREREQUISITE for success - implying that their competence doesn’t matter if fans don’t buy on faith alone! But getting back to the academy, it was obvious years ago that getting cheap young academy kids into your playing roster was an advantage in a salary cap-type league and the Dynamo did virtually nothing (or got zero results) for the better part of a decade. I mean, you gotta really suck or actually add negative value to the effort to spend 10 years in the Houston market and have nothing really other than Memo to show for it
A writer from another city reports on how deep our youth pool is. Been saying this for years. Wake up FO! I wish the best to this kid. Tough to stomach him in a FCD kit however. Holocher, get on this asap partner. Welcome to Texas!
If there were proof they'd spent my season ticket money on developing players, I'd feel bad about the current predicament. They didn't and I don't
Ha! You were the first person I thought of when I read the above. Second, I thought of all those random players I would match up against back in the day in some shitty Hispanic league. Lots of players in this city.
Oh no doubt. The level of play in the HFA men's prem is solid. So are the escondido leagues as I affectionately call them. For obvious reasons. Then there is our high school scene that has grown from decent in the 90's to very coached and outstanding U-19 skill. Boys from all over the planet go to high school here in our geat city. The pay to play scene is as well very strong, however many of those players are not locked in to being a future pro soccer player. Often being from affluent families their burning passion to scrap n claw their way to a pro contract is just not there. With all thia said, all our FO has to do is throw a wide net around Houston and East Texas (to get the Clint Dempsey n Gringo Torres outta small town Texas!) and groom the few elite standouts that really want to start their pro career at 17, not 23, as has been the norm in our NCAA/Draft culture for feeding pro teams. It really needs a few dedicated Dynamo youth scouts that have an eye for talent. Talk the boy up, secure his family knows what the path our Dynamo envision for him. Bring the boy at 15 or so to train with his peers and often with our first team n bench. Nothing new. No reinventing the wheel. Just mirror what has been common for development n grooming of youth players up n down our Americas for generations.
IT'S A ********ING PROFESSIONAL TEAM WITH A DIRECT LINE TO A PRO CONTRACT AND NATIONAL TV EXPOSURE...... no reason why we shouldn't be able to pluck kids from academies like Texan FC. They put out legit talented kids from the Texas area and we let Dallas get some of these kids in our own backyard. You think losing to them is embarrassing.... this shit is a giant middle finger to us. THAT IS EMBARRASSING!!!!
I feel ya' brother. It's like one of our lil' nephews sold his soul. All cuz our own FO is a pack of slackers. Not willing to sign this kid.
Sam, TBH I don't blame the kids at all. If even my son asked me about joining the Dallas youth.... it would be a hard pill to swollow..., but I would tell him if he wants to be footballer as a career, not really a better place in the US. If the Dynamo came a calling, I would push for that lol, but would want to give them the best possible path to the top.
Yeah, I don't think this is a very difficult one. If your kid has talent and wants to be a pro footballer and has a choice between Dallas and Houston, regardless of which team you may support, Dallas is the obvious easy answer. A strong track record for developing talent, moving it up and then actually playing it. The Dynamo? A strong track record for wasting talent.
Blame is a harsh word. I don't blame our local youth for looking for any path to your dreams. Besides, this is a northsider, Texans player right. So he booked it more North. Again, wish him the best. I run into our Academy U-18's all the time. Stop to chat them boys up and see how they roll with their passion for the beautiful game. Certainly what they think of our club n the first team. To which not one of them over the years when asked to name their favorite Dynamo chant, they are clueless. If our own Academy older boys can't even sing a fight song then what kinda culture of soccer is our own Academy fostering. Do our coaches know our club's chants. Even just the easy ones. So kids from Texans or Rush or Rise must meet our Academy boys and perhaps it makes the decision even easier to book it to another MLS club or let's not forget Liga MX clubs. They scoop up talent all the time here in Texas and California. Something else I have noticed after 13 Dynamo seasoms. So many American and Americanized immigrant footballers play the sport here but barely watch the game. Perhaps Messi in UCL play or World Cup, but it often comes across that our local talents don't even watch our Dynamo. The local pro team that their coach, me, follows. Odd when you are more passionate about a hometown team than my own hometown teenager players. They all think they can turn pro, but think Barcelona will sign them outta Bayland Park. Sigh.
Eric Quill - Former MLS'er - is theTexans SC Technical Director. Why is their an MLS veteran passionate about youth soccer in this city not working for the Dynamo Front Office? The issue is not where the team ranks now Academy-wise. It's that the team ranked about the same every year for the last ten or so years while the team had this Academy. During that time, the Academy developed no prospects that truly developed into pros for the team that were solid. Yet no changes at the Academy. The Circle of Suck is the result of the apathy of the Front Office. Their inability to make a single change despite continuing to suck and suck more. The owners inability to fire people for this apathy is the only problem that I have with the owners. Not their level of financial investment. Granted behind the scenes could be a litany of people like the Academy Director, Matt Jordan, and Chris and others asking for more money all the time and being told no. But I think it's more how the money is spent and who is deciding how it is spent as opposed to the amount spent. I mean how much did they invest in the off-season on the concession upgrades? Has the upgrades decreased wait time at all or was that a secondary consideration next to other priorities?
The Dynamo today reek of an organization where leadership has always been insecure and has continually made only short-term decisions for the better part of a decade. That’s why they have no academy talent, because it was easy to trim costs from the spreadsheet or avoid having to ask for investment dollars when the payoff was longer than 6 months down the road. Dom wasn’t innocent in this either, but coaches are mostly win-now (which is the exact reason you need a strong club executive). Management by spreadsheet never looking beyond 6 months only works for so long. On the concessions project, according to the minutes of the Harris County Sports Authority meeting on 2/12/18, the concession improvements with Levy cost $1 million. It’s not totally clear but I think that represents the 2017 & 2018 Taste of EaDo remodel and the other things this past offseason. As to whether they have any key performance indicators to measure the effectiveness of that investment, no idea.
It’s not easy being right about what the Orange Kool-Aid Brigade is going to say: Replying to @SeanRingrose @4heavydirtysoul and 3 others I was about to say the same thing. I like our players. You could spend millions more and have a much worse team. Look at Toronto over most of their history and Galaxy past 2 seasons. And Jordon’s not an idiot. I’m not happy the way this season went but it will get better. 5:44 PM · Sep 12, 2018 from Cinco Ranch, TX
Proud of my Dynamo for being thoroughly consistent in their approach to youth development at all levels. https://www.mlssoccer.com/series/22-under-22/2018 https://www.uslsoccer.com/20-under-20